


Hold Your Breath

by goldfishtobleroneandamitie



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Eponine starts out sort of evil and I'm sorry, F/M, Gen, M/M, Swim Team AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:29:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfishtobleroneandamitie/pseuds/goldfishtobleroneandamitie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where, when her parents stop buying food, Eponine gets a job at the Patria College Preparatory Academy's natatorium. </p><p>Alternatively, an excuse to write buff Amis and Courfeyrac in a Speedo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“…well, fuck me backwards with a shovel.”

“Succinct,” grins Grantaire, “but accurate.”

“This place is as big as my parent’s _motel,_ R!”

“Less rats, though.” The artist reaches up to scratch his head, then suddenly waves at someone she doesn’t see. “Look, Ep…I gotta…I gotta go change. Coach Fauchevelent’ll show you around,” he says hurriedly, waving a hand at a small knot of men across the pool.

“Thanks for nothing, R!” She groans at his retreating back, then begins the trek around the (gigantic) pool.

It’s Olympic-sized—fifty meters, Grantaire has told her. But while she watched the hundred-meter freestyle along with everyone else in the US, she, also like everyone else in the US, had been more interested in Ryan Lochte’s abs than exactly how far he’d been swimming.

Her sneakers squeak against the slippery tile, and she sort of regrets not listening to Grantaire about her clothes. She’s got a bathing suit on, but it had just seemed wrong to first meet her employer in basketball shorts and ratty tank. So she’s in jeans that are sticking unpleasantly to her skin in the humid air and the only Patria Prep T-shirt she owns. (It’s from fish camp, is two years old, and is therefore rather too tight across the bust, and she suddenly regrets her clothing choice still more.) But she’s approaching the group of men when one catches sight of her and splits off. “Eponine Thénardier, I presume?”

He’s the first person to pronounce her name correctly since…well, ever. She tells him so, and he laughs. “We have a number of expatriate students here, and one of them in particular is rather fussy about pronunciation, so I have much practice.” His speech is careful, formal, making her think that English isn’t his first language either. Maybe Dutch, or Afrikaans.

He’s still talking, though, so she re-focuses on the matter at hand. “You’ll be a catch-all, a general assistant, if you will. Grantaire has assured me that you’re a good worker—“ he coughs delicately, cementing her suspicion that she’ll need to prove that herself—“so you’ll start today. I would show you around myself, but practice begins in—“ he checks his watch—“Now, actually.”

On cue, a door slams open, admitting a stream of fit guys in Speedos.

She feels a little like Mulan in the lake scene for a few minutes—if more awestruck than disgusted—as the crowd thunders past, calling cheerfully to each other as they splash into divided lanes, comfortable and with apparent prearranged spots.

“Enjolras, begin.” Fauchevelent calls.

“Warm up sets! Swimmers, take your mark—go!”

Five out the six lanes thunder out in unison, leaving one hapless swimmer still tugging at his PCPA rubber swim cap.

“Marius, what’s the trouble?” the coach sighs, with a note of long-suffering weariness to his voice.

“Sorry, Mr.—Coach—Fauchevelent—trouble—swim cap—sorry,” the boy stutters, cheeks flaming red, and sets off with a kick that sends water splashing everywhere, including all over Eponine’s nice (Goodwill, but still--) Reeboks.

“And with that,” says Fauchevelent drily, “I leave you in Mr. Lesgle’s capable hands.”

He gestures to a man who’s just approached, who looks older than a high school or even a college student.

“I don’t know about _capable,”_ the man says cheerfully, “but I can at least show you around. Call me Bossuet, everyone else does.”

“…Bossuet?” _Is there_ no _one here with a pronounceable name?_

“Hazard of hanging out with prep-school kids. You get nicknamed after dead French philosophers,” says Bossuet easily. “Now, did Grantaire tell you anything about what you’d be doing?”

“Not really,” she replies honestly. She wouldn’t be here at all except her grades aren’t quite good enough for a full academic scholarship and her minimum wage can at least get dinner for Gavroche, Azelma, and the kiddies when her parents forget or are on a job. (It’s happened one too many times for comfort.)

“You’re a gopher, basically. Fixing lane-ropes, manning time trials, setting up and breaking down for meets. You’ll go home when the lifeguards do, though; Grantaire’s your ride, right?” She nods. “Great. Now all we really need to get you started with is your test-out. You can swim, right?”

“Ha ha,” Eponine groans, and begins to strip. Grantaire’s warned her about this; it’s just a three-hundred yard swim to make sure she won’t drown herself while doing pool maintenance. It’s why she wore a bathing suit.

“Well, even so…Cosette!”

A shape unfolds itself from where it had been draped across the bleachers, and crosses towards them with the grace of a gazelle. It’s a girl, a little taller than Eponine, and she’s _gorgeous._ Like, Vogue-model gorgeous, some perfect combination of Kate Upton’s curves with a china doll’s face. Eyes that take up her whole face, thick blond hair twisted back into a messy updo that somehow looks like something off a photo shoot, and red GUARD swimsuit right out of _Baywatch._ Eponine dislikes her immediately.

“Need me to watch a test-out, Bossuet?”

“If you please. Whenever you’re ready,” he tosses over at Eponine.

She eyes the water dubiously; it’s no fewer than eight feet deep, even in the so-called “shallow” end, and while she can certainly swim she does not like the roiling of the water caused by the ferocious swimmers in the other lanes.

She’s got no choice, though, because she needs this job, so she bites the bullet and plunges in.

She comes back up, sputtering. “It’s _cold!”_

“Well, yeah.” Cosette slides down to dangle her feet in the water, grinning. “Swimmers sweat, too.”

“It’s _September._ Water should not be this cold,” Eponine grouses, but pushes off the wall to gales of laughter (even her _laughter_ is perfect, God, the perfect combination of genuine and hearty and gentle and tinkling).

After a while, the cold sinks into her bones, and the sweep of her limbs through the water is oddly soothing, as is the muffled roar from the churning arms and legs of the swimmers to her left. It’s only Bossuet’s hand in front of her face, wiggling in the water, that notifies her to stop.

She surfaces, and Bossuet says, “Looks fine. Go ahead and get—“ he lets out a strangled cry, and suddenly he’s toppling into the water next to her.

Cosette’s whistle rings out clear and sharp, and then the blonde girl is in the water too, bracing the larger man against the wall. Grantaire appears around the corner, changed into his own blue T-shirt and red swimsuit, sprinting flat out. When he surveys the scene, however, with Eponine and Cosette helping a drenched Bossuet to the closest ladder, he stops, laughs, and calls, “And here I thought you were _serious,_ Cosette!”

“Nope, just procedure,” she yells back, sticking her tongue out at him cheerfully.

“Wait, what?” Eponine pushes on Bossuet’s muscled back while Grantaire grasps his wrists, and with a heave they leverage him onto the deck.

“This is a bi-weekly occurrence,” says Bossuet, still smiling if slightly soggier. “I don’t even know why Cosette activates the EAP anymore, honestly.”

“I certainly don’t,” Grantaire snickers. “It’s funnier to watch him get out.”

“It’s good practice,” comes the reply, as Cosette climbs onto the deck with enviable ease.

“Bossuet, you take a dip again?” The call comes from across the pool. The voice, while crackling with laughter, contains only mirth, without a hint of derision. Eponine, squeezing out her hair, looks up to see one of the handsomest men she’s ever seen braced against the opposite side of the pool, pouring the contents of a water bottle into the side of his mouth.

“Bug off, Courfeyrac!” Bossuet calls good-naturedly.

“What happened? Oh, goodness, Bossuet, are you all right?” Another head pops out of the water on their end, wearing a PCPA cap, a sprinkling of freckles, and a worried expression.

“I’m fine, Joly.” Bossuet sends the other boy a fond and reassuring look.

“You sure? I’d be happy to give you mouth-to-mouth,” calls the pretty man again.

“You know CPR breaks ribs, right?” Cosette shouts back.

“Not the way I do it.” He laughs, taking another long pull from a bottle of Gatorade.

He really _is_ gorgeous, Eponine realizes. Not her general type—she usually goes for long and lean, not brawny—but she can see hints of dark-brown curls escaping his swim cap, not regulation Patria Prep blue and red but instead bright green and proclaiming in white letters: I’M BETTER ON MY BACK. He’s got packed muscles in his shoulders and chest that bunch when he bends his elbows. She can’t see the color of his eyes from here, but his grin is certainly visible—almost too wide for his face, and absolutely infectious.

“No one will giving me mouth-to-mouth, thanks so much. I’m fine, Joly, really.”

“Mr. de Courfeyrac! Back to your sets, please!” comes cracking across the pool, from an exasperated-looking Coach Fauchevelent’s direction. “Joly, while I’m sure Mr. Bossuet appreciates your concern, he appears to be fine, so I will ask you to return to practice as well.”

Joly disappears immediately. De Courfeyrac (whom Eponine has dubbed Broad Shoulders, because really who can pronounce that) takes longer, choosing to take another sip of Gatorade and shoot a languid and salute in the general direction of the coaches before launching himself into the water with a tremendous splash.

For the next two hours, Eponine learns how to check chemicals, clean skimmer baskets, handle shock, brush walls, replace lane-ropes, fix buoys, oil gears, and work the fuse box. She’s shown the swimsuit dryer and cleaning supplies, where the extra swim caps are, and is warned to _never_ touch the timesheets. “Some of those swimmers are State contenders—even Nationals. If there’s any question of tampering, they could lose their eligibility,” Bossuet warns. “If anyone other than Fauchevelent or me asks to see them, come find one of us.”

Eponine nods, not understanding but appreciating the urgency in the usually-easygoing man’s voice. “Aye, Cap’n.”

“Bossuet, have you seen—oh, hi!” A strawberry-blond head sticks through the doorway. “Are you Eponine?”

“Yeah?” She’s not sure if her confusion shows on her face but apparently the boy (it is a boy, she determines, as he steps further into the room, despite hair that’s nearly as long as hers) notices, because he laughs and sticks out his hand. “Jean Prouvaire. Diver. Call me Jehan.”

“Eponine Thénardier.”

“Oh, I know.” He laughs again. “Grantaire talks about you all the time. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were his girlfriend.”

“No!” She gags. “He’s like my brother.”

“He’s also gayer than frolicking through a field of flowers in May,” says Jehan drily.

She blinks at him. “He’s out to you?” He isn’t out to his _parents,_ let alone the general student body. Grantaire gets enough shit for being poor; he hadn’t felt the need to give them something else to hurt him with.

“Well…it’s kind of obvious.” She cocks her head, but he’s still talking. “And, darling, we spend our time here looking at other men in about as little clothing as is legally allowed. Those of us that _aren’t_ gay are extremely accepting of those who are. We’re a progressive bunch—we have to be, with Enjolras around.”

“Enjolras?” She’s heard the name, she’s pretty sure, but it’s gotten lost amidst the unpronounceability of it all.

“Swim captain, so far left it’s a wonder he doesn’t drive on the wrong side of the road.”

“Ah.” She isn’t sure what to say to that, and Bossuet has vanished into the men’s’ locker room. Luckily, Jehan checks his watch and gasps. “Shit, diving practice! Nice to meet you, Eponine. See you around!”

With that, he slips out, and since Bossuet is still in the locker room she follows him. He flits to the end of the natatorium, where the diving well is, literally shedding clothes as he goes until he’s in just as little clothing as the cluster of boys and girls beginning their stretches by the pair of boards—one high, one low. They’re all muscled as well, but more gracefully than the swimmers, lacking the sheer power she’s observed among most of those.

“Ah, there you are. Can you help put away the blocks like I showed you?” Bossuet points to the row of metal-and-plastic stands, locked into special cement wells, that the now-exiting swimmers have been using to propel themselves into the water.

“Sure.”

“Great. Thanks.” Bossuet hurries off to join Joly as the younger man hauls himself out of the water with enviable ease. His swim cap is off now, revealing his hair to be the color of redwood. He looks tired, but not nearly as tired as he should after the two hours of work she’s seen him put in.

They don’t _stop,_ she’s noticed. Some are slower than others, and they’ll pause for sips of water or to check timers or setboards, but their practice is continuous and prolonged.  She’d been winded after three hundred meters; each of them had probably done thirty times that, at varying speeds and using strokes that look more conducive to drowning than floating.

She’s in shape, she comes to the realization. She’s fit. But these—these are _athletes._

She’s about halfway down the row of blocks at that point, and the pool is empty except for the pretty one who’d poked fun at Bossuet earlier. He’s not laughing now, though; his face is closed, serious, and concentrated as Fauchevelent gestures at him, speaking quickly. With a short nod, he pushes off the wall, the force of his kick sending water high into the air. His arms move like windmills, his legs like pistons as he pulls himself backwards through the pool.

The scene is visually arresting, if not beautiful. He gives off an aura of _power,_ rather than of grace like the divers she can see in their hot tub or doing flips on their trampoline _._ He kicks up a furious froth rather than disappearing beneath the water with barely a ripple, as she can see Jehan do after executing a near-perfect double front flip. Nonetheless, watching the swimmer holds her as Jehan’s precision doesn’t.

“Need a hand?”

She starts, and looks up….and up…and up.

The man who’s spoken is probably a good five inches over six feet, with proportions to match—though not as broadly muscled as the backstroker she’d been watching. He runs a little leaner, showed off deliciously by the tight, soft PCPA t-shirt he’s wearing over a pair of dry swim trunks.

He’s kneeling before she can answer, and his hands close over hers and twist. The screw she’s been struggling with comes loose with a stiff creak, and she flashes a smile in the general direction of his face—even kneeling, he still towers above her. “Thanks!”

“Absolutely.” He twists the last of the four bolts free, and begins to fold the block flat. “Start the next one?”

“You don’t have to—“

“I don’t mind.” He’s not looking at her, instead moving to the next block. She does the same, silently. “I’m waiting for my friend anyway, and I wasn’t just going to sit around and watch you do work. Here, I’ll put these two away,” he finishes, and with an enviable lack of effort hoists a folded block onto each shoulder. (He may not be broad, but his muscles flex beautifully anyway). “By the way, I’m Combeferre.”

“Eponine.”

“Nice to meet you, Eponine.” He moves off, and Eponine turns back to her work.

He returns empty-handed a few minutes later, with what can only be described as a Greek statue in tow. She realizes with a jolt that she’s seen this particular piece of art, however, before.

“Enjolras, this is Eponine. Eponine, Enjolras.”

The statue barely spares her a glance, but she gets the impression it’s due to preoccupation rather than actual rudeness. However, at an elbow from Combeferre that’s clearly intended to be subtle—but comes through loud and clear for someone who’s been taught how to read people since she could talk—he tosses off a “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you for your help—again,” she says to Combeferre, honestly.

“No problem. Feuilly, you need a ride?”

“Nah, man,” responds a lanky boy just walking up, still scrubbing his hair dry. “I’ve got bus fare.”

“I don’t mind—“

“I know. I do.” The other boy is flushing to his hairline by this point—it clashes horrendously with his flaming hair—as he sneaks but a subtle-but-not glance at her. Eponine holds her tongue, offering a polite smile of greeting but nothing more.

“All right, then. “ Combeferre’s voice is vaguely disapproving, but he doesn’t push it.

The silence nearly edges into awkward when Feuilly bids them farewell and heads for the exit. With troubled and preoccupied looks, respectively, Combeferre and Enjolras do the same. After obtaining permission from Bossuet (who’s leaving with an arm wrapped around a stressed-looking Joly), she seats herself exhaustedly on the bleachers to wait for Grantaire.

Another flash of red hair catches her eye, darker than Feuilly’s but lighter than Joly’s, and she recognizes Swim Cap Trouble—Marion? Darius? Marius. He’s talking to Coach Fauchevelent, stuttering an apology if she has to guess.

He’s adorable, she realizes. All flushed face and red freckles, and with long limbs she’s starting to think are prerequisites for high school swimming. He’s handsome, too, though, if still raw; she can see that he’ll be an absolute beauty when his face fills out to his knife-blade cheekbones and strong jaw, and if he develops the muscles she can see barely stretching over his long bones.

More than that, though, he looks _nice._ Like Combeferre, but even more so. He couldn’t hurt her if he wanted to, she thinks. He’s a boy who would worship her, who would ask her for nothing except for the experience she has in spades. He could be her first attempt at a _normal_ relationship, that isn’t half-orchestrated by her parents for criminal gain. She can see him holding her hand in the halls, kissing her on the cheek (while blushing fiercely) as he drops her off for class. She’s never wanted that before, but a steady warmth spreads through her at the thought of it now. Grantaire had told her that this job was a new start; why can’t that be in her love life, as well?

She doesn’t miss, however, the looks he shoots over the distracted coach’s shoulder to where Cosette is putting away the lifeguard tubes.

She feels a rush of emotion flood her stomach, a sort of acidic cold that eats its way up into her chest, and she identifies it with surprise.

Jealousy. She’s jealous of Cosette, with her golden hair and buglike blue eyes and perfect curves. Of _course_ Marius would be interested in someone like Cosette; who _wouldn’t?_ Who, given the opportunity to admire Cosette, would look twice at skinny, swarthy Eponine, whose hair currently looks like Medusa’s and whose figure is that of a twelve-year-old boy? (She’s not being entirely fair, she knows; she’s got a perfectly acceptable rack, Montparnasse has told her so) but today’s a pity party, so she quashes the voice of reason until it shuts up.

“’Ponine, ready to go?”

She’s started from her reverie by Grantaire, changed back into his paint-stained shirt and jeans from his crisp lifeguard outfit.

“Sure, let’s,” she mutters, shooting a last glance at the quarto of Broad Shoulders, Fauchevelent, Marius, and Cosette.

Grantaire holds the door of the natatorium open for her and doesn’t comment on her silence, or her brusque manner. He seems lost in his own thoughts—he usually is, when she sees him on days after lifeguarding. She’s seen his sketches on those days, too. They’re always the same, and now she can put a name to that nearly inhumanly gorgeous face.

_Enjolras._

They get into Grantaire’s car in similar silence, but years of habit clock the cars still on the lot. There’s a 1997 but well-kept Land Rover with a PCPA faculty parking sticker on it, and parked across the lot, top down, is a fiery red Mustang convertible. Judging from the mess of textbooks, goggles, and clothes in the backseat, the PCPA student parking sticker in the windshield, and the TOO SEXY FOR SPORTS REQUIRING CLOTHES bumper sticker, she’s guessing it belongs to Broad Shoulders.

She bites back a smirk. It’s probably one of those smart-key cars with a silent alarm, armored transmission, and six different forms of security, even open, and anyone who drives that kind of car as a high school student could afford to replace everything in the seats a dozen times over, but Eponine’s been raised by professional criminals. She could hot-wire the thing in under a minute, and she’s half-tempted to, just to prove she can.

But no; the only condition of Grantaire’s getting her this job is that she’d go straight. For the sake of Azelma and Gavroche, she can’t afford not to.

Getting hold of Marius, however, isn’t illegal.

She’s a Thénardier, and Thénardiers don’t let anything get in the way of what they want.

She lets the smirk bleed free. Marius won’t know what hit him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone uses the royal We, and someone else is headed for disaster.

When Eponine enters the natatorium the next day, she’s nearly brained by a passing gym bag. As it is, she dodges to only get the corner of it to the shoulder, rather than the bulk to the face, but she’s still knocked sideways and backwards.

“Shit, sorry!”

“ _Jesus,_ Bahorel, be more careful!” growls Grantaire, catching Eponine’s elbow to keep her from falling.

“Shut the fuck up, Grantaire, I said sorry,” comes the reply. “Are you all right?”

It takes her a split second to realize that she’s being addressed, because she’s trying to figure out how someone’s elbow-height bag could catch her in the face. Eponine’s no Amazon, but she’s not short. Her questioning line of thought is silenced when she actually _looks_ at her assailant.

He’s as tall as helpful Combeferre from yesterday, and broader than Broad Shoulders. His T-shirt can barely hold all of him, with bodybuilder’s muscles and coppery brown skin peeking out of holes in his possibly-older-than-her T-shirt.

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Then let me introduce myself. Bahorel, the lifeguard manager at this fine establishment, and Grantaire’s boss,” he finishes, sending a glare over her shoulder (or rather, down; he’s tall enough that he doesn’t need to move to see Grantaire behind her).

“Cosette’s at decathlon,” R explains.

“Yes, our Miss Fauchevelent had prior engagements.”

_Fauchevelent._ “Cosette’s related to the coach?”

“Yeah, his daughter. Used to dive, but she’s trying to get into Harvard.”

_Of course she is._

Suddenly, pain explodes through Eponine’s back.

“Oh—oh—oh, my god? Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay, _scheisse,_ I didn’t need this today…”

“It’s—“she catches sight of the speaker, and her heart nearly stops.

It’s Marius from yesterday, and his hair looks like he just rolled out of bed. (No, she is not thinking about what he looks like in bed).

_Fuck, yes, she is._

“—okay,” she finishes, and the long, sharp-boned face in front of her lights up with a reckless smile that nearly splits it in half. It’s terrifying and adorable, like a Doberman puppy. “I’m so glad. Marius,” he says, sticking a hand out.

“Eponine,” she replies, leaning forward to give him a decent flash at her cleavage (set off well by her tank top, thank goodness).

He doesn’t even glance downward, holding her gaze the entire time. “I—I’m quite glad you’re all right, Eponine.”

“Eh, who’s blocking the door?”

“Practice is in _twenty minutes,_ puppy, and I need plenty of time to squeeze into that much spandex.”

“You mean that _little_ spandex, don’t you, Courf?” _That_ she recognizes as Combeferre, the tallest of all and standing at the back of the crushing group that’s sweeping everyone out of the way as it comes through the door.

“Naturally. How could I deny the world— _oh,_ who’s this?”

“Back off, Courfeyrac,” Grantaire snaps.

“Only if the lady wishes,” Broad Shoulders shoots back, sending her a playful wink. “James Courfeyrac. Call me Courf, or Jamie, or anything, really. I’d be happy to be addressed at all by one such as you.”

“Nice to meet you, Courf.” It’s tossed off as she watches Marius escape the crush, face comically panicked as he catches sight of Enjolras (at Combeferre’s right shoulder), and head straight for the locker room, nearly ending up flat on his back in a puddle.

“And you. Are you going to give me a name, lovely, or will I have to make one up?”

“Eponine.” She forces her attention back to Broad Shoulders; he’s not exactly lacking in terms of eye candy, and she’d have to be blind not to notice how he’s flirting. The attention is flattering, if nothing else.

“Well, Eponine, may I just say you have the most gorgeous eyes I have ever seen?”

She snorts disbelievingly. “Does that actually _work?”_

“More often than you’d think,” he laughs. His eyes, she sees now, are a mesmerizing green, mossy and bright, that stand out against skin that’s losing its summer tan. Not tamed by a swim cap, loose curls bounce to his eyebrows, in the sort of cut that would look comfortable under a beanie or slicked back at a fancy dress party. “But the ones it doesn’t work on are the ones that interest me. Alas, fair lady, I away!” And he does, followed by a distracted Enjolras, guffawing Bahorel, distracted-by-Enjolras Grantaire, and a bemused Combeferre.

“Sorry about Courfeyrac. He can be a bit much. He’s got a good heart, though.”

She turns to see the lanky ginger from yesterday extending a hand.

“Feuilly. Mile and 1500.” His handshake is firm, and she can feel rough calluses against her palm. Odd. Patria’s a pretty damn exclusive private school, so it’s unlikely that any of the swimmers have jobs that require any sort of real, manual labor.

Unless…

_“You need a ride, Feuilly?”  
“Nah. I’ve got bus fare.”_

…he’s like her.

Scholarship kid. As soon as she’s thought it, she doesn’t understand how she’d missed it before. Getting tuition differently, of course—swimming instead of working—but essentially the same.

“You’re Eponine, right?”

“Right. Tell me, Feuilly,” she jokes, “do all swimmers introduce themselves by events instead of last names, or is it just here?”

“Well, it’s kind of a defining aspect of our lives.”

Eponine starts, looking over her shoulder to see Jehan a few feet away. “Like, Courf, or Joly—swimming is what they _do._ Fauchevelent probably sees more of us than our own parents do.”

Feuilly mutters something, but she only catches “…complain,” and he shakes his head when she shoots him an inquiring glance.

“But yeah. Why do you think Bossuet got a job here, considering he’s about as well suited to the water as a Siamese?” Jehan finishes, undeterred.

Eponine looks at him quizzically. “I don’t know. Why?”

“He and Joly have been dating for…a good year now.” Jehan shrugs.

“Jehan—“ explodes Feuilly, as Eponine feels the color drain from her face.

“Sorry, was it a secret? I thought everyone knew. Well, except Fauchevelent.”

_I thought everyone knew._ It’s an innocent comment, and even after two days of knowing him Eponine is certain that Jehan would rather slice off his own arm than hurt a friend.

But— _Bossuet? Coach_ Bossuet, who’s old enough to have graduated _college,_ with high-school-senior _Joly?_ She’d seen them leave together, but she’d assumed they were mentor and student, or even _brothers,_ but not _boyfriends!_

She pictures Lesgle’s cheerful face, easy grin flashing white teeth against dark skin, and feels nauseous.

“I’ve—I’ve got to get to work,” she mutters, and leaves Feuilly glaring and Jehan confused behind her.

“Hey, Eponine,” comes from behind her. It’s Combeferre, holding a swim cap in hand, shirtless and wearing a pair of basketball shorts. “Do you mind—“

His eyes narrow, frighteningly perceptive as they sweep her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

He looks unconvinced, but lets it drop. “I was going to say, do you mind helping me get this on? Enjolras usually does, but…” he shrugs, looking an adorable mixture of self-deprecating and helpless.

“Sure.” At that, he bends to wet the cap, holding the front edge to his forehead as she tugs it into place, remaining nearly bent in half to allow her access.

“Thank you.” He straightens, leftover water dripping down his face, off his nose, and spangling his eyelashes. She’d clocked his body yesterday, but his face isn’t half bad either. It redefines “long”, thin nose and strong jaw in a narrow face, overset by a pair of gray eyes. He cocks his head to the side, and she feels those eyes—that should have little depth of color but instead seem to X-ray her soul—and says simply, “I hope you feel better.”

With that, he turns and heads back into the locker room. She’s left, mouth slightly agape, outside the team office as the swinging door shuts behind him.

She shoves open the office door, where pinned to a corkboard is a typed piece of paper.

_TO-DO LIST (MAINT.)_   
  


  1. _Scrub diving well tiles_  
  

  2. _Sweep under bleachers_  
  

  3. _Fill out LG paperwork_ (This one has a handwritten postscript, red and spiky, reading _Grantaire, this means YOU!!!_ Followed by a black doodle of something she’s pretty sure is anatomically impossible.)  
  

  4. _Clean out hot tub & sanitize _(this one in softer but still masculine handwriting: _Sorry, Eponine.)_



“Afternoon, Eponine,” Bossuet says hurriedly, pulling the timesheet folder from a drawer and rushing out. She manages a hasty, reflexive response before the door clicks shut. She’s grateful, because she’s not sure if she could have hidden how she feels.

(Who is she kidding? Of course she could. It’s what she does.)

She collects the cleaning supplies from the truly gigantic closet devoted to maintenance (calling it a closet, really, is rather misleading; it’s bigger than her admittedly tiny motel room).and opens the door with one shoulder, balancing a heavy bucket in one hand and three different cleaning solutions in the other. The whole thing nearly comes tumbling down until a large hand flashes overhead to catch the edge of the door, letting her re-balance.

“Oh, th—“ she pauses, glances up—“Thanks.”

“Dear me, we do have trouble with doors today, don’t we?” Broad Shoulders is grinning, the smile taking up half his face, and his eyes are sparkling with laughter. She’s starting to wonder if he’s capable of anything else.

“At least We don’t refer to ourself in the third person,” she snaps, but the jibe loses its sting as she grins despite herself.

“Ah! Milady, you wound us!” He lets the door swing shut behind her as he presses a hand to his (deliciously bare) chest.

“Do you _always_ talk like something out of a Jane Austen novel?” Her voice is dry as she turns and walks away, but she can’t help the continuing grin as she hears him follow her.

“It’s more Shakespeare, actually. Blame Combeferre—you’ve met Combeferre? For exposing me to all the fabulous insults that can be created with sixteenth-century English,” de Courfeyrac says cheerfully.

She flips the switch to drain the hot tub, and he hops onto the edge, dangling his feet in the rapidly draining water. It’s then that she notices that he’s not wearing clothes.

“Jesus _fuck,_ will you put some pants on?!”

He quirks his eyebrows at the oath, half-quizzical and half-amused. “I have.” He shifts so she can see the dark blue Speedo that barely covers everything important.

“You would _literally_ get _killed_ with _rocks_ for wearing that in certain countries.”

“Thankfully, not this one. Personal autonomy, yadda yadda. Thank goodness—one less thing for Enjolras to go on about. Why, you complaining?” He waggles his absurdly flexible eyebrows at her, and she can’t help but laugh. “Ah! I _knew_ you weren’t shy! ‘Ferre didn’t believe me, but—“ he stops. “Ahem.”

“Was I the source of a bet?”

“Combeferre would never participate in something so crass.” Courfeyrac sniffs, the perfect picture of stuffy New England society (which he probably is, now that she thinks about it), but it lasts barely a few seconds, instead breaking into another wide grin. “That is, no money changed hands.”

“That makes me feel _much_ better,” she deadpans, and begins to sprinkle Ajax into the now-empty hot tub.

“It should. The day Combeferre stoops to such lowly pleasures is the day Enjolras joins the Westboro Baptist Church, which in turn is the day that all Feuilly’s fears of the zombie apocalypse come true.”

“Let me guess, it’s also the same day Grantaire stops drinking?” It’s out of her mouth before she can stop it, and her stomach drops. Courfeyrac only gives her an appraising look.

“You know about that?”

She snorts. _I was there when he first drank, asshole._ “I’ve always known,” she says instead.

“I’m sorry.” There’s no smile now, only a quiet somberness in green eyes gone dark and a seriously set mouth. She curses herself doubly—one, for bringing down the conversation, and two, for dousing such a well-lit soul. The world has too much darkness in it, she thinks, to suppress any light at all.

She shakes herself and scrubs harder around a jet.

“He doesn’t drink at work, you know.” His voice is quiet. “And he’s here a lot. So that’s something.”

She leans back on her heels, and looks him dead in the eye. “How do you know this?” It comes out rough, and she wants it to, because her eye candy is getting too damn perceptive for his own good.

“I like people. I’m good at people,” he replies. “So I’m good at reading them, too. It’s why I knew you weren’t shy. And why I’ve known about Grantaire’s obsession with Enjolras since he started work here—“

“Then you’ve known _that_ for longer than I have,” she returns. “I found out yesterday.”

“Tell Grantaire to cut loose.” The serious mouth, having left for a moment, returns. “Enjolras doesn’t see that sort of affection, and he wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did. Trust me; I’ve known him since we were toddlers.”

“Let me guess…you hit on him?”

“Nope, that was Combeferre, fifth grade.” He laughs. “Enjolras was declaiming on a table about the perceived inequality of nap time, and I tackled him off the table.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. We’ve both still got the scar from bumping heads.” He taps his forehead, and sure enough, under the thick brown curls is a neat, short white scar above his right eyebrow. “Blood brothers.”

_Ha._ Her memories flash to sliced palms pressed together, of ropy pink scars under rusty switchblades. _That’s_ blood brotherhood, she thinks, and it’s not nearly as lighthearted as Broad Shoulders would make out.

“Listen,” he says, interrupting her reverie, “I know you’ve met Enjolras, but he was probably doing a good impression of a marble statue if it was after practice. He’s a baby when he’s tired. You,” he continues, “should come to our next meeting at the Musain. More clothes, sadly, but we also talk about politics and social justice instead of shaving and tapering. Grantaire comes a lot, so get him to pick you up, or I can give you a ride—“

“I’ll get a ride with Grantaire.” No way in hell is she letting anyone from Patria see where she lives. (Though the thought of riding in that car makes her mouth water).

“Courf, quit flirting and get over here!” Speak of the devil—it’s Enjolras himself, looking as peeved as such a pretty face can.

“Coming, taskmaster! I think your suit’s too tight, judging from the color of your face. Might want to look into that, darling.” With a wink, Courfeyrac scoots to the ground, landing neatly on two feet. “Till the morrow, milady.”

With that, he sets off to the other end of the pool, and he _must_ be flexing because there’s no way his butt’s actually that tight. He reaches the other end and claps a still-peeved Enjolras on the shoulder, who relaxes—clearly in spite of himself. With a whoop, he cannonballs into the water, assailing the still-dry swimmers and Bossuet with a wall of water. She can’t help the smile as she turns back to the hot tub.

(She misses the glance that Combeferre sends her way, cheeks ruddy with uncharacteristic embarrassment.)

* * *

 

“Aight, guys. Got something special!”

The kiddies, Marcel and Isaac, come bounding out into the shared space, squealing. Gavroche follows, not as visibly excited (such displays are beneath the dignity of a thirteen-year-old), but with a consumptory glint in his eye.

“Whatcha got, ‘Ponine?”

“Chicken!” She says proudly, dropping the plastic grocery bag onto the table.

“Aww, yeah. Chicken nuggets, ‘Ponine!” Isaac launches himself at her leg, and Marcel bounds towards the table, climbing onto his accustomed plastic chair.

“Coming right up.” She starts the rickety electric stove without incident, and has the chicken sliced and popping happily in the skillet before the question hits her: “Where’s Azelma?”

“Out. She kept checking her phone, put on one of your shirts, and left about an hour ago.”

Eponine leans against the counter and closes her eyes. “Thanks for staying with the boys, kiddo.”

“Yeah.” It’s said flippantly, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Gavroche straighten in his chair. The chicken lets out a final hiss, and she turns it out onto a plate. Gathering ketchup, she serves it up onto four plates.

Before she reaches the table, she takes three pieces off the plate marked “E” and slides them into a Tupperware container.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, lovelies! I promised you more Speedos, didn't I? Many, nay, a thousand thank yous to MeMeMe, who betaed this in spite of almost needing a tetanus shot (and then had the gall to apologize for the wait). Also thanks to got_spunk, who sends me lovely messages and reminds me to write these things. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think, either here or at my tumblr--goldfishtobleroneandamitie.tumblr.com.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eponine spends a lot of time inside her own head.

Eponine wakes up the next morning to no chicken and a snoring Azelma on the couch. Other than circles under her eyes, the younger girl looks none the worse for wear; however, Eponine, after poking her and being met with no response, carefully checks forearms, neck and shoulders for marks, and goes through her pockets. No track marks—thank God—and minimal bruises; a few fingerprints on an upper arm, but that’s basically to be expected at one of Claquesous’s parties. With a discreet look, she hits the jackpot, and tugs a Ziploc bag half-full of white powder out of her sister’s cleavage.

It could be anything, or a mixture of everything, but she flushes it down nonetheless. The kiddies are playing board games in the other bedroom, and Gavroche is God knows where.

“’Ponine?”

“Grantaire! Hey! Thanks for coming,” she calls as R lets himself in. It’s his day off, but not hers, so he’s agreed to baby-sit. He owes her; she’s made sure he didn’t go home too drunk to defend himself too many times to count, and he’s crashed on her couch so often that he has his own key.

“Anytime. No sign of the parental units?”

She casts an apprehensive look towards the bedroom, but it’s got a distinctive quiet to it that speaks to nothing more suspicious than Candy Land going on. “I haven’t seen them in almost a month, R.”

_“What?”_ Grantaire blinks.

“I  _know,”_ she hisses. “Marcel keeps asking about them, and I don’t know what to tell Isaac, he’s so quiet…’Zel’s out of control, and the auto-pay on the water bill’s bound to run out soon, but I don’t know when.”

Grantaire looks at her levelly. “Does anyone else know?”

Blinking back the burning in her eyes, she responds, “’Zelma does, obviously, and considering how chatty she is when she’s drunk, ‘Parnasse probably does too. But he won’t tell anyone—not without blackmailing me first, anyway. And he likes Gavroche, so he might not at all. Gavroche knows something’s off, but he doesn’t tell me anything, you know that.”

“Kid grew up way too early,” grimaces Grantaire.

She lets out a rough laugh. “Didn’t we all, R?”

“True, that.” A gentle hand, with scarred knuckles and callused fingertips, cups her jaw. “You all right to work today?”

She hiccups. “Do I have a choice?”

Grantaire concedes the hit with a bitter smile, and Eponine snorts. “Money’s in the drawer—Happy Meals or something. Tell Azelma that if she leaves again tonight, I won’t let her back in.” It’s an empty threat, but Azelma hasn’t figured that out yet and Eponine plans on keeping it that way. “Marcel’s stuff’s in the bag by the—“

“’Ponine, I know.” Grantaire takes her shoulders, pulls her forward. “And I got lunch today. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty, take you over to the meeting.”

She buries her face in his jacket and just  _breathes,_ reveling in the smell of leather and cigarette smoke and paint. “Thanks, R.”

“Anytime. Now go, or you’ll miss your bus.”

With a muttered oath at her watch and a shouted goodbye to Marcel and Isaac, Eponine hurries out the door.

* * *

 

Her phone buzzes as she pushes through the glass doors, and a chorus of hellos greets her—a harried one from Bossuet, a polite one from Joly next to him, a quiet one from Combeferre and an exuberant, yelled-across-the-pool one from Courfeyrac.

She drops her bag in the office with a bemused smile. She’s never had this many people happy to see her before.

Her phone vibrates again, and with a glance at the door, she fishes it out. Her face wrinkles, and she scowls at the little screen.

**[from: Parnasse]** zelma get home okay?

With an aggravated huff, she shoots back:

**[from: Ponine]** she’s fine, no thanks to u

**[from: Parnasse]** u kidding? Got Guelemer off her n drove her to your complex. What’s the deal with your dad? Hvnt heard from him in 2wks

She sends him a creative stick-figure drawing in response, and shoves the phone into her bag.

She’s scrubbing tiles for most of the day; only varsity—that is, the ten or eleven core swimmers—practice on Saturdays, and mostly not till the afternoon. She’s only halfway through the shallow end—“shallow”, for these people, being code for “only eight feet deep”—and her arms are beginning to tremble from holding herself up. She hauls herself further onto the deck to rest her biceps for a moment, breathing embarrassingly hard, and her hair—previously piled on top of her head—slides with an unceremonious squish into her face.

“Need a hand?”

She swipes enough hair out of her eyes to see Cosette, whose hair is perfectly coiffed, thanks so much, and who is valiantly fighting down a smile.

“Can I help you?” It’s not her best line, granted, but considering that she’s on her stomach, at eye level with Cosette’s toes (professionally-pedicured pale pink—the bitch), she’s proud of the vaguely acidic tone that she manages to muster.

“No—sorry.” Cosette smiles. “I was just going to ask—do you want to borrow a guard tube? You won’t have to hold yourself up, then.”

“That’d…that’d be great?” She can hear the surprise in her own voice. “Thanks!”

“Sure. Be right back.”

Eponine watches the girl go, and lets her head fall back to the tile.

Pretty, smart,  _and_ friendly. Damn.

“Hi—are you Eponine?”

Her head flies up so fast that her hair hits something with a wet  _smack._ She rolls once, horrified, to see Marius crouching above her.

“Shit!—I mean, yes—I’m Eponine,” she babbles. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, it happens,” he smiles, without a hint of a stammer. “Marius Pontmercy—I’m not sure we ever—“

“I know.”

He blushes, and she can feel an identical one rising in her own face. “—what do you swim?” she asks desperately, somehow managing to get to a sitting position without falling in the pool or sliding too badly on the deck.

“Backstroke and freestyle,” he says gratefully. “I’d do more free, but Courf’s grooming me to be stroke captain next year.”

“Broad—Courfeyrac’s a senior?” She sits up, crosses her legs in a way that emphasizes their length, and begins to finger-comb her thick hair into something resembling order.

“Mmhmm. All the golden trio are,” Marius replies, relaxing next to her. “That’s what Bossuet calls them. Combeferre says I’ll get decathlon captainship next year too if I don’t do anything too crazy.”

“Decathlon?”

“It’s like the sport for knowing useless things,” he laughs. “Like, I do languages, Enjolras is politics and philosophy, Combeferre does our math stuff, and Jehan does literature questions—he’s got a memory for quotes like no other, it’s terrifying. Oh, and there’s Courf.”

“What’s he do?”

Marius looks thoughtful. “Nothing in particular. Or—maybe everything. He doesn’t specialize the way most of us do, but he knows enough about everything, it seems like. He’s the glue, Professor Mabeuf says.”

“Mabeuf does decathlon?” The man’s ancient, a genuine, friendly man who’s never once looked scathingly at Eponine’s too-short hems rolled up to hide the fraying edges) or pityingly at her furious note-taking in a sea of MacBooks. He teaches upper-level Philosophy mostly, but he’d browbeaten her sophomore English teacher into cutting her some slack and had tutored her in his native French. She likes Mabeuf; without him, she’d have failed out of Patria long before now.

But she can’t imagine when dusty Mabeuf would have the time or energy to manhandle a bunch of rambunctious swimmers into academic pursuits.

Her next thought is whether decathlon could help contribute to her scholarship. She’d gotten into Patria on the strength of her math scores; and if Combeferre is a senior, she might be able to wrangle his spot. She makes a mental note to cozy up to Combeferre at the meeting.

(Not that it’ll be hard.)

“…you like school?”

She snaps to the present, realizing she’s been ignoring Marius for who knows how long. He doesn’t seem to have noticed, sadly, still talking blithely about…German, she thinks it is.

“It’s okay,” she says instead, tossing her now-presentable hair. “Not really for me, though. The kinds of things I know aren’t in books,” she finishes, with a throaty laugh. It’s the kind of answer that Montparnasse would like; he’d call her his “kitten” and drag her in for a kiss, glaring over her shoulder so that everyone knows she’s his.

But her dad had made ‘Parnasse second-in-command in Patron-Minette a few months before he’d disappeared, and now he’s gone from protection to a liability. If Old Man Thѐnardier knows one thing, it’s how to watch his back. And letting his oldest daughter date the man most likely to shank him in a dark alley had been more of a risk than the Innkeeper-what his cronies, sources, and dealers call him—was willing to take. Eponine hadn’t complained; ‘Parnasse had been handy to have a round, but he swaggered too much and eyed Azelma once too often for him to be anything other than tolerated. He’d used her as she’d used him, both of them street kids surviving, and she’s not sorry to have cut him out.

She’ll turn eighteen soon, and it’ll be her chance to go straight. Thѐnardier had let her attend Patria to facilitate the “soft” deals there—marijuana, Ritalin, 25i—to the over-privileged high school kids. Now that he’s gone, she might have a chance to actually make a break for it.

Six more months. She’ll be eighteen, and she’ll have a prayer of suing for custody of Gav, Marcel and Isaac. Six more months, and she’ll be able to turn her parents in, take the kids with her into Witness Protection, and run, leaving that stinking motel smoking in their wake.

(She means that literally. There’s already kerosene and matches stored in one of the many rat-infested, vacant rooms.)

Marius chuckles, blushing. It’s adorable. Montparnasse wouldn’t blush at that—it’d show weakness. Marius is innocent, wearing emotions and nervousness on his sleeve, and it draws her far more than it should. Marius had come to speak to her, for no reason except to apologize.

“Here you go, Eponine.”

…or to talk to Cosette.

“Cosette! Hi!” Marius scrambles to his feet, nearly falling into the water in his haste. “D’you—could I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, Marius.”

“I’ll see you later, Eponine,” Marius tosses over his shoulder, as he follows Cosette.

Courfeyrac’s nickname has proven to be painfully apropos; he looks like a Rottweiler puppy, with potential for pointy teeth but for now just tripping over its own feet.

(Asking why she knows about Rottweilers is probably a bad idea).

Eponine considers ignoring the tube, but her practicality (and her triceps) win out. With an explosive sigh, she grabs the tube and lowers herself back into the water.

* * *

When Bossuet tells her to clock out—and, more importantly, hands her a check for the last two weeks—she hurries into the locker room to change. Her wet swimsuit goes into a plastic grocery bag, and with a smile she pulls out a heavy makeup case.

Madame Thenardier (“not _Mrs.,”_ she’d coo at a barely-legal Montparnasse, “it makes me feel old!”) likes to think she’s a Mob boss’s wife instead of the brutal leader of a small-time drug ring, and dresses accordingly. Eponine’s got half-used cases of foundation, twelve different colors of expensive eyeliner, lipstick from coral to bloodred, and a shit-ton of anti-aging creams that she doesn’t use but doesn’t have the guts to throw away. She hasn’t worn makeup in two months—since she stopped going to parties with ‘Parnasse—and she’s pretty sure the cat eye that had made Claquesous’s eyes glaze over in the dim light of his apartment will look ridiculous in the bright eye of the Musain, the coffeeshop that the meeting’s supposed to be held in. So she pulls out of the bag an entirely different set, heavy on the pastels and browns and even less used, that her mother had bought her on her eleventh birthday, when the woman had still pretended at having a maternal instinct. Then the twins had been born, and “mama” had turned into “witch”. The dark-brown pencils and the pink lip gloss had gone unused.

She can do smoky eye better than Angelina Jolie, she thinks. How hard can a thin, tasteful rim be?

“Try the subtle, no-makeup look, they said. It’ll be fun, they said,” she mutters rebelliously as she exits the locker room, and collides directly with an especially broad chest.

He greets her with a wide smile and a hint of surprise in his eyes. “Ah! Joining us after all, fair lady?”

“My ride await…eth me, outside,” she snickers. “See you there.”

“See you.” The jovial look drops from his face for a moment as his eyes move down her—not sleazily, like her father’s friends; admiring—and his gaze returns to her face as he looks at her levelly. “You look very pretty, Eponine.”

“Thanks.” It’s not the stammer she’d have given Marius, or the cocky “I know” she’d have shot Montparnasse. It’s different. Real.

Courfeyrac’s arm, surprisingly covered by a dark green button-up, brushes hers as he leaves.

* * *

When she tugs Grantaire’s door shut and reaches for her seat belt, the dark-haired boy’s voice cracks across the car. “Spill.”

“Spill what?” She’s no stranger to playing coy, but in this case she’s honestly confused.

“Why Cosette looks upset when I mention you and why Courf looks like Beyonce and Jay-Z just broke up?”

“What does that even mean?” She rubs the bridge of her nose. The bright lights and echoey sound quality of the natatorium, along with the smell of chlorine and cleaning products and topped off with Grantaire’s sharp voice, have combined to form a headache behind her eyes.

“Shell-shocked, upset, and a little hurt. Mostly shocked. They’re the most solid couple in showbiz, other than Neal Patrick Harris and whatever-his-name-is.”

“David Burtka,” she responds automatically, because NPH is too attractive to not know his relationship status, gay or not.

“I _know—_ I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for me to be gay and _not_ know—but it pleases Enjolras and entertains me to think me ignorant of the proponents of his cause.”

“Ah, so the marble statue’s pretty when he’s angry?” Her head is throbbing. Said marble statue had stepped on her fingers a total of three times today, apologizing only under prompting from an apologetic-looking Combeferre, whilst shouting instructions at a visibly-frustrated Feuilly.

 “Very,” Grantaire says wryly, with a bitter twist to his grin. The distraction has its desired effect—Grantaire won’t miss a chance to talk about Enjolras—but something besides a headache is brewing in Eponine’s head, now.

Marius and Cosette aren’t dating. He’s fair game. And she and Cosette aren’t friends, either. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and she doesn’t owe Baywatch-babe, Harvard-applying, damn _friendly_ girl anything. Does she?

And why the _fuck_ would Broad Shoulders look hurt?

She winces as Grantaire grinds the gears speeding onto the highway, and a jolt of pain lances through her temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suddenly, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
> 
> Thanks to MeMeMe for being generally awesome and also for her beta work. 
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr! goldfishtobleroneandamitie.tumblr.com.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a throwdown at a coffee shop.

“So, Azelma’s at home, and she looked scared when I told her what you said,” Grantaire says conversationally.

“Good. Did Gavroche show up?”

“Yeah, about three. Fed him lunch and left all four of them watching Pacific Rim.”

She looks at him sharply. “You didn’t buy that, did you? I’ll pay—“

“’Ponine, relax. Got it burned for me from a friend. Not high quality or anything, but smashin’ robots for the boys and badass female role models and pretty men for Azelma, so I didn’t think you’d mind too much.”

She squints at him suspiciously, but he looks back with such an innocent expression that she’s forced to laugh and look away with an “eyes on the road, asshole.”

They pull into the Musain parking lot about ten minutes later. It’s on the corner of a suburban strip-mall, surrounded by gated communities with pretentious names, probably within walking distance of where most of these kids live. The parking lot looks full, but craning her neck she can see that only the swim team, plus a few loiterers, remain.

She shakes her head. Each of them has their own car. Unbelievable.

They’re nice cars, too—she can see Courfeyrac’s Mustang in front, next to a no-nonsense but still nice BMW and a Prius. Across the lot is a mint green (custom, of course) Bug convertible, parked next to a black Ford pickup that’s peppered with dings and can only be Bossuet’s—why is he here? and catty-corner to a gold Cadillac that wouldn’t look out of place with a Handicapped sticker in the window. It’s got a PCPA student sticker on it, though, so it can only be Marius’s. She’d seen Feuilly getting into Combeferre’s car earlier, so they’re the last to arrive; not surprising, given Grantaire’s hunk of tin’s tendency to shudder if taken over fifty.

She represses the urge to fall to her knees and jokingly kiss the ground, but just barely.

The shop, as they enter, smells like coffee and hot pastries even this late at night. It’s walled in pseudo-artsy plaster and golden brick, with a light wooden floor covered with green rugs. It should feel dark, but it doesn’t; it’s well-lit from yellow light that comes from surprisingly powerful little chandeliers hanging every few feet. The entire storefront is glass, promising plenty of natural light come morning; as it is, though, it looks onto the surprisingly well-lit parking lot, lined with its nice cars.

All in all, the Musain exudes _safe_. She could see bringing the kids here, doing her homework while Marcel and Isaac color. Azelma would people-watch (or, really, hot-boy-watch), and Gavroche would roll his eyes but reach for one of the nearly-dry Crayola markers just the same.

The fantasy is punctured when she sees the price of the coffee.

She shells out the $3.95 for a tea with a mental wince, because she may be cheap but she’s worked retail (one of her more-savory jobs) and knows that you don’t piss off baristas by taking up space without paying table rent. Grantaire orders coffee, black, then stares at the barista while he thins it from a flask. The guy shrugs, hands him a lid, and walks off to lean against the counter where the swim team has set up.

They’ve taken up a good half of the coffeeshop, rendering that half smelling slightly of chlorine and absurdly loud. Broad Shoulders is spread-eagled across a couch, legs in Combeferre’s lap as the other boy attempts to type on a laptop perched atop Courfeyrac’s shins, and his head on Jehan’s knee. Enjolras is leaning on Combeferre’s shoulders, reading the laptop screen intently. She notices with a determinedly ignored pang that Marius and Cosette are sitting together, studiously avoiding each other’s gaze but hands on the table, an inch apart. Bossuet and Joly are in one corner, the latter dabbing at a fresh coffee stain on the former’s pant leg; Bahorel lets out a bellowing laugh at the assistant coach’s misfortune, and Grantaire heads towards the dreadlocked giant with a laugh and a swig from his cup, to laughs and a clap on the back from Feuilly.

“Milady, join us!” Broad Shoulders calls with a cheery wave. Jehan lets off a distracted one, scribbling in a notebook. Enjolras doesn’t acknowledge their entrance, but Combeferre looks up and over his glasses to shoot her a small smile. She lets out a slow grin, the kind that would make Claquesous laugh, and revels in the tinge of pink that spreads over his cheekbones as he hurriedly looks back down.

“Is the place to your liking, fair lady?” Broad Shoulders inquires, and she lets out a snort as she sits down.

“Do you even know my name, Br—Courfeyrac?”

“I do indeed. It’s—shit.”

Raising an eyebrow, she sips her tea, and Courfeyrac says quickly, “Combeferre—“

“No.”

“Jehan, what’s—“

“Nope.” The diver doesn’t look up. “You made this bed, you lie in it.”

“Horse goddess, I remember that much,” mutters Broad Shoulders, sitting up slightly to a squawk of protest from Combeferre as he re-settles his laptop. “Diana, Demeter, Epona—Eponine!” He sits back, satisfied. “I prefer milady, personally.”

“You remember people by the gods their names sound like?”

“It’s a bit of a trad—ouch!” The curly-haired swimmer glares at a determinedly ignorant Combeferre, but subsides. “Just you. I’m the one who gave Bossuet his nickname, too,” he continues. “Otherwise it was horribly dull and didn’t match.”

“You didn’t give him that nickname, Combeferre did. You just drove it into the ground,” interjects Jehan again, still not looking up from his scribbling. With skill born of years of practice, Eponine gets a glimpse of the words, but it’s no use—the letters slant oddly and are in a thick ink, so the script itself is illegible.

There’s something odd about the way Jehan writes, she notices, but she can’t put her finger on what.

“Anyway,” continues Courfeyrac blithely, “Bossuet had some horribly provincial name before, and now he matches the rest of us in pretentiousness.”

“That’s not a word.”

“It is now, ee cummings.”

“He was an artist, not a high school student too lazy to grammarize correctly.”

“I can write poetry too, you know!”

“Courfeyrac,” comes quietly from the other end of the couch, where Combeferre’s eyes seem steadfastly glued to the laptop screen, “we all know what happens when you write poetry.”

Eponine’s laughing too hard at the spectacle to comment, and only laughs harder when Bahorel silences the entire café with an invitation to “shut their pieholes”. Jehan flicks his notebook shut with a sniff, and she follows Courfeyrac’s abruptly redirected gaze to the corner of the café.

The first thought is a pang of pity for the baristas, because Enjolras is standing on a table. Not next to it, not near it—on it. She supposes he’s not all that tall to begin with—her height or an inch taller—but it seems like overkill nonetheless.

Her second thought is to retract the pity, because all three baristas, two female and one male, are unabashedly hanging over the counter with all but their tongues lolling out.

Her third thought, when she glances over to Grantaire out of habit, is that her pity is better placed.

Grantaire looks fucking awestruck.

Looking back over at the boy on the table, she can’t deny his outright attractiveness. Lush blond hair, a strong jaw that marks him as male despite the full lips and slight body, huge eyes that rival Cosette’s in sheer blueness—even now, in a ragged T-shirt and flip-flops, hair half-dry from pool water, Enjolras is unquestionably a fine specimen. It’s doubly amazing considering the sea of eye candy she’s managed to wade into. Enjolras may not be her type, but she can’t deny he’s worth a look.

Grantaire, though…she sips her tea and keeps a close eye on her friend’s hands. They’re shaking, like he needs a drink, but he can’t because she’d seen the amber liquid he’d dumped into his coffee cup. His face is upturned, laser blue eyes that keep girls sighing over him despite his baggy clothes and vodka breath (girls he’d ignored with a single-mindedness she hadn’t understood till now) fixed on Enjolras’s face.

The look on Grantaire’s face makes the hair at the nape of Eponine’s neck stand on end.

She wrenches her eyes away and finds them caught again by the two boys next to her. Enjolras is still talking, though she couldn’t say about what. Combeferre’s still studying his laptop screen, tapping out a soothing counterpoint to his friend’s voice. But Courfeyrac’s turned towards Enjolras completely, face as attentive as the first day she’d met him—a look of concentration that surprisingly suits him as well as his seemingly perpetual grin.

Marius, when she looks, is finally not looking at Cosette.

(He’s looking at Enjolras, but. Progress.)

“They’re selling drugs to younger and younger kids—a thirteen-year-old got caught with 25i the other day—“

“For those of us in the dark, Apollo,” R drawls, “elaborate?”

Enjolras’s nostrils flare, and he bites off a “like you don’t—“

“25i is a research chemical,” Combeferre cuts him off, looking up, “that’s often used in place of LSD. However, it’s quite a bit more dangerous because—“

“Because if you took ten tabs of LSD, you’d trip for a year, but you wouldn’t die,” finishes Jehan, fiddling, with the binding of his notebook and threading his pen in and out of his bun. “If you took ten tabs of 25i, you’d be dead.”

“The problem isn’t the drug itself per se, R,” says Bahorel, uncharacteristically somber. “It’s that this sort of thing is being passed off as safe to kids who don’t know better. 25i’s a good bit cheaper, and it’s hard to tell the difference unless you’ve tried both.”

“And trust me,” adds Jehan again, with a quirk of his lips, “there’s a difference.”

Eponine has to fight to keep her eyebrows down at that one. Sweet little Jehan, knowing about the massive fuckupery that is research chemicals? She searches her memory; no, she’s never sold him anything. It’s surprising, because she’s been the top seller at Patria, or at least the mule, for almost a year. Jehan must be getting his from someone else, or have cut down.

She eyes the boy, whose long, slender fingers are still fidgeting away at his pen. Looking at him, she wouldn’t have pegged him as a customer, but she can’t say she’s surprised, either. ee cummings, the notebook…he’s one of those artsy types, who probably took LSD for the pretty colors instead of to truly get away.

Out of his regulation Patria speedo, Jehan’s completely obscured the fit and wiry musculature Eponine knows is there. His hair, brushed straight and wet, is piled atop his head, and a grossly oversize loose-knit sweater in a particularly horrendous shade of green falls nearly to his knees. Under that are what she’s pretty sure are women’s jeans, considering that they’re pale purple, that culminate in small feet wrapped in pretentiously simple-looking burlap Toms. Pinned to one, inexplicably, is a cockade á la French Revolution.

Perhaps not so inexplicable, she reconsiders, looking around the room. The red, white and blue motif seems everywhere, pinned to backpacks, dangling from key rings, threaded into shoelaces. Broad Shoulders even appears to have one bobby-pinned into his curly hair.

Enjolras is still talking, she knows, but it’s hard to concentrate on much of anything else when she’s caught sight of Marius and Cosette. They’ve proceeded, blushing furiously, to actually holding hands. Cosette is the perfect picture of coquettish modesty, Marius the archetype of nervous, bumbling schoolboy. Both of them are surrounded by a nearly tangible glow of nervous excitement, and Eponine feels sick.

To distract herself, she takes a quick gulp of tea. The liquid, far from calming, hits her stomach like a rock, sending mere uncomfortable churning into a fierce roiling. Gingerly, she sets down her cup. The ceramic rattles against the table—not because she’s shaking, fuck you—and it’s loud enough that Combeferre sends her an inquiring look. She musters up a weak grin and a wave, at which he looks skeptical but turns his attention back to Enjolras.

Next to her, Courfeyrac shifts, so the side of his body is pressed against her back.

Even through the cotton of his shirt, his skin is cool; a freshman biology class somehow not forgotten tells him he’s still burning calories from his earlier workout. It’s an odd feeling; she’d expect him to be burning, a living furnace, like Montparnasse when he’s hopped up, or at least clammy, like Grantaire right after school when he hasn’t had a drink in eight hours. He’s neither; instead, a soothing presence against her flushed skin as her stomach subsides.

She moves to tuck her feet underneath her as Courfeyrac reaches for his coffee, and a sudden jerk to the coffee table lands her elbow in his side and her back in his lap.

“Shit,” Courfeyrac hisses, sticking presumedly burned fingers in his mouth. “Mmf.”

“Sorry!” She whispers, attempting to extricate herself from his lap. It’s hard to do quietly, and she can feel Enjolras staring at her, but the fact that Broad Shoulders is giggling and it’s making his stomach flex distractedly under her arm makes it hard to care.

A hand wraps around her elbow and she’s hauled upright; her mouthed “thank you” is waved off by Jehan, who’s already returned his attention to Enjolras, who is amazingly still going on about LSD. She supposes it’s only fitting that Grantaire, who’s no strong silent type himself, would go for someone this long-winded.

But Courfeyrac is still smiling, and as she steadies herself carefully against the back of the couch, he catches her eye. He’s obtained his coffee now, fingers appearing none the worse for wear, and as he takes a drink he winks over the rim of the cup.

It’s almost too fast to see, but she could swear a slight pink tinge rises in his cheeks as he turns back to Enjolras, who is still on the table.

Eponine can feel another flush creep over her skin, but it’s lighter, less uncomfortable, this time; and instead of raging in her stomach, she feels a light fluttering.

* * *

 

Enjolras talks for almost an hour, and Eponine finds her cup drained to cold dregs. Only a few minutes after that, she’s tapped on the shoulder, and she turns to see Bossuet holding out two fresh mugs.

Courfeyrac reaches over her to accept his refill. After a moment of astonishment, she follows suit. The assistant coach gives her a small smile before—very carefully—picking his way back to the counter, where Joly hands him two more mugs.

She watches the bald man press a sweet kiss to the freckled boy’s temple, and she squeezes the ceramic.

Joly looks happy, she realizes. She doesn’t know him very well—he’s always friendly but is probably the most often absent from practice, and he and Bossuet usually leave directly after, not staying to chat like Bahorel, Jehan or Courfeyrac do. He accepts the kiss with a sunny smile, with no tension or nervousness in his shoulders that she can detect; any red in his cheeks she can only chalk up to the warm shop.

Her hand relaxes minutely on the cup. She’s not sure she’ll ever approve of what’s going on with them, she thinks wryly, as she sips her new tea. Bossuet’s still old, and a coach, and that position of power will still make her uncomfortable.

But looking on them doesn’t make her nauseous anymore. She’s not afraid for Joly, not like she was before. If anyone here had even suspected Bossuet’s motives were anything other than pure, he’d be out on his ass; these guys may be spoiled, with their nice cars and obsession with a sport that literally requires its own building, but not a one of them is bad. Damn it, they’re not even stupid; they’re _here_ , aren’t they? In a yuppie coffee shop, yes; talking about the wrong drugs, fine; but they’ve done a damn sight better job of caring than anyone else ever has before.

_Clap._

_Clap._

_Clap._

“Wonderful spiel, Apollo, do you practice in front of a mirror at home?”

Combeferre lets out a quickly-repressed sigh, Jehan’s fingers flex slightly on his pen, and Enjolras looks like he’s swallowed a lemon.

“Do you have a point, R, or are you being disruptive for its own sake?” Enjolras bites out, looking murderous.

Eponine flicks her gaze between them—Enjolras now alighted from his table, Grantaire still sprawled in his chair at the front of the café—warily, because Enjolras, at least is exuding tension. Most people would take Grantaire’s loose limbs as not caring, but she knows better; there’s a spark to his eyes that means he’s up to something. It’s not a happy glint. She’d figured out half an hour ago that she’d be busing home, considering how many doctored cups of coffee Grantaire’s been throwing back, but Grantaire’s said little in the past hour. She should have caught the bad sign it was; Grantaire’s a lot of things but quiet doesn’t happen to be one of them.

Unhappily, he seems to be making up for it now. “Why, surely! Would I interrupt otherwise? It just seems that tonight’s topic rather seems to contradict your usual values—libertѐ, egalitѐ, are they not?” Grantaire pauses, drinks. “Are not these people as able to make decisions about what goes in their bodies as you or I are? And I don’t see you stopping me.” His mouth twists into a bitter grin as he drinks again.

“God himself couldn’t stop you from drinking, R—“

“And yet you presume to control fifteen-year-olds?” replies Grantaire, with a harsh laugh. “People are stupid, Apollo. They don’t do what’s smart, or correct. Their choices are flawed.”

“Then all the more reason for investigation of the Innkeeper!” hisses Enjolras, and that if nothing else, gets her attention. She’d assumed that was what they were talking about, but to her own surprise the actual revelation makes her stomach roil—not with nervousness, but with shame.

She’s suddenly aware of how stiff Courfeyrac has become beside her. All the relaxation has drained from his face and body, and his easy smile has tightened into a pained and angry grimace.

Grantaire and Enjolras are still volleying diatribes across the table, becoming less civil by increments on Enjolras’s part and more punctuated with drinks on Grantaire’s; Combeferre, over Courfeyrac’s shoulder, looks more and more worried.

“…because, surely, if a stupid little kid decides to put shit in their body, there’s more going on than—“

Crash.

Eponine had jumped under Courfeyrac’s sudden jerk, and Enjolras has stepped forward, eyes blazing, restrained only by Combeferre’s warning hand on his arm. Courfeyrac’s cup lies in scattered bits on the floor, coffee cooling rapidly and staining the floor.

Her eyes travel down the couch before reaching Broad Shoulders. He’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring intently at the shattered bits of ceramic on the polished wooden floor. He doesn’t react when she touches his shoulder, and she’s taken aback by the sudden feverish heat that’s begun bleeding off of him.

Grantaire’s stopped now, and meets Eponine’s eyes. His are clear—he’d have to be a lot drunker to lose his faculties—and he looks defiant, almost gleeful at her confused look.

Not hers, she realizes. _Enjolras’s_. The golden boy is staring at Grantaire, for once silent, and it might be with anger but for once all of Enjolras’s attention is fixed on Grantaire, and suddenly Enjolras is yelling.

“You idiot, drunk off your ass and not caring who you hurt with your vile—“

“Enjolras!’ Combeferre’s hand on his friend’s arm tightens, and with another fearsome look Enjolras turns to touch Combeferre’s shoulder.

She looks back at Grantaire and feels nauseous.

Grantaire’s face is shining, now, almost blissful on the perverted high of Enjolras’s diatribe. His cheeks are red, shining in the warmth of the shop, and his eyes have gone unfocused, or perhaps hyperfocused on the only thing that matters.

“R.” Jehan’s voice, quiet though it is, breaks the spell. “You need to go.”

It seems to snap Grantaire’s reverie, and, with a muffled “sorry, man” from Bahorel, he turns and lurches out. The tinkling bell on the door angles absurdly behind him, and her friend vanishes into the dark.

It’s Joly who breaks the silent. “Should we…follow him? Take his keys?”

“Nah.” Eponine shakes her head. “He’s not stupid, and he doesn’t live that far. He’ll walk.”

“I live down the street,” says Jehan softly. “I’ll make sure he got home.”

“Thank you, Jehan.” Combeferre rubs his forehead. “Should we disband?”

There are murmurs of assent all around, and the group begins to rearrange tables and pile saucers. Courfeyrac stands up like an old man, but moves towards Bahorel and Feuilly as they stack chairs.

Eponine collects coffee mugs four at a time to set on the coffee bar, gingerly avoiding the broken ceramic by the table. With ten of them to help, it’s short work.

“Eponine—“She looks up to see Combeferre, “—Grantaire was your ride, do you need one?”

“I’ll take the bus. Thanks, though,” she replies, with a smile.

“Like hell you will,” says Courfeyrac, speaking for the first time since before the Cup Incident. “It’s late, and the bus line is sketchy at night. I’ll take you home.”

She bites her tongue on exactly what he would know about the bus line at night, and merely nods instead. She’s not going to turn down a ride in that car.

“I can—“ begins Combeferre, but Courfeyrac interrupts.

“You have a curfew, ‘Ferre, I don’t. I don’t mind.” He’s smiling, and it hurts Eponine to see because even she can tell that it’s not his usual smile. This one’s practiced, perfect, not the slightly-lopsided, sunny grin she’s gotten too used to.

Slowly, the Amis trickle out. Bahorel is first, a hand around Feuilly’s shoulders as the skinny ginger complains loudly; then Bossuet and Joly, the latter giving Courfeyrac a quick hug before following his boyfriend out. Next is Jehan, with a cheerful goodbye and a swift kiss to Eponine’s cheek; Marius and Cosette follow, blushing furiously and fingers intertwined. She barely notices them going, for the first time.

Instead, she’s watching Broad Shoulders. She’s lived around emotionally unstable people her entire life, and she hasn’t made it this far in one piece by taking her eyes off them.

It’s curious, she thinks, as she sets the last dishes on the bar. He’d been fine, so far as she can tell, until Grantaire had started talking. What had changed? She’s never seen him so closed before; not in the pool, after practice, not when he’d needled her while cleaning a hot tub.

She shakes herself. She doesn’t know him, not really. She’d come to catch Combeferre, not Courfeyrac, and that had been a bust. The only interest she has in Broad Shoulders is his gorgeous car.

They leave Enjolras and Combeferre still hunched over the laptop. Combeferre sends her a distracted goodbye as she follows Courfeyrac towards the door; Enjolras says nothing.

Broad Shoulders is quiet as they reach his car, his only indication that he knows she’s there being absent-mindedly opening the passenger door for her. The engine starts with a purr that makes her want to cry, and they pull out of the parking lot in silence.

She quietly directs him to the highway, and he obeys with a quiet shifting of gears; as he accelerates, the fall wind whips through the car, and before long her goosebumps outweigh any disappointment as Courfeyrac presses a button and the top comes up.

“Thanks.” She rubs her shoulders.

“There’s a jacket in the backseat, if you don’t mind it smelling like a pool.”

“I’m pretty sure everything you own smells like a pool.” She grins as she pulls the bright red hoodie emblazoned with PCPA over her head.

“You’re not wrong,” he replies, and she catches a glimpse of a smile. It makes her stomach flutter rather more than it really should. “I love it, though.”

“Because you’re good at it.” She settles against the car door, pulling the oversized sweatshirt over her knees. It smells like the natatorium, yes; but like other things too, coffee and deodorant and some slightly fruity shampoo.

He looks thoughtful. “Maybe, but—no, not really.”

“Why, then?” She’s surprised. She’s seen how hard he works, why else if not to be the best?

“I mean, being good’s great, no complaints. And, yeah, I get to hang out with my best friends.” He pauses. “But really—when you’re in the pool, Eponine, you don’t think about anything else. It’s just you, and the water, and—hell, I’ve never found anywhere else that peaceful.”

He’s not looking at her, at the vast expanse of the road instead, and he’s smiling. Not the plastic smile from the shop, or the wide grin that splits his face; no, this one’s quieter, calmer, but she ventures that it’s no less genuine for it.

“…everyone’s got a place like that. What’s yours?”

It takes her a long moment to respond, before her mouth twists.

“Not me. I’m a bit busy trying to get by.” It comes out more bitter than she’d intended, so she tries to soften it with a small smile. He catches it, smiles back, and she burrows farther into the sweatshirt with an abruptly warm feeling in her stomach. “This is my exit.”

He obeys, the engine revving beautifully as he switches lanes, and turns into the working-class neighborhood about half a mile from the motel. The houses here are old, but kept up; not like a little bit north, where joints litter the grass instead of kids’ toys.

She picks a house at random. “Drop me off here.”

The car smoothly comes to a stop, and Broad Shoulders turns off the engine. It’s full dark now, and the street is quiet; she’ll be fine walking home, since it’s a bit early for Patron-Minette to be partying—only 11PM—and they wouldn’t dare touch her anyway. Between her dad, Montparnasse, and her own penchant for kicking grabby guys in the balls, even the lowest bullyboy in the neighborhood knows that Eponine Thenardier is not to be messed with.

“Thanks for the ride,” she murmurs, but makes no move to go. Courfeyrac is still smiling, slightly lopsided and—fuck it—adorable, and she feels that damn fluttering in her stomach.

“I’d better—she says, scrabbling for the handle, when she’s cut off by a warm hand on her wrist.

“Hey, Eponine—are you busy sometime, maybe after practice, we could get coffee? Or—or something? Not with the team, just—you know. Coffee.”

Her cheeks flame, and it’s difficult to concentrate with his long fingers wrapped about her wrist.

It’s a terrible idea. Really, it’s one of the worst ideas she’s ever had, because she’s got four other kids to take care of and what about Marius and—

“Sure,” she finds herself saying. “I’d like that.”

The lopsided smile widens, into the first smile she’d ever seen from him—playful, genuine, a bit lascivious. “Great.”

Before she can respond at all, there’s a tug at her wrist and she’s in his lap—and his lips are on hers.

For a split second, it’s gorgeous. He’s clearly accomplished, applying the perfect amount of pressure and playfulness, and her eyes flutter shut. Her flingers rest lightly on his chest, gearshift sticking into her hip.

It’s gorgeous until she feels a soft nip on her bottom lip, sharp against the softness.

Her fingers splay out from their loose curls, and she shoves back. She scrambles against the door opposite a very shocked Courfeyrac.

“Eponine, I’m sorry! Shit—are you okay?”

Blood is roaring in her ears, and her vision is swimming, but she focuses on his open, surprised face. He didn’t mean to hurt you. You’re fine.

He doesn’t try to touch her, thank God. Instead, he remains on his side of the car, moving slowly, hands open on his knees where she can see them. “Eponine,” he says again, “are you all right?”

Somehow, somehow, she’s able to answer his question.

“I will be.”

He only nods, doesn’t push. He says softly, “do you want me to walk you to your door?”

She almost bites off a _no—yes—fuck_ before squashing the urge, closing her eyes and holding up a finger. He seems to understand, and doesn’t continue.

“No,” she says, beginning to calm. “Thank you. But I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t your fault, she wants to say. You didn’t do anything wrong. The words won’t come Instead, she offers a small, shaky smile, and he still looks worried but the guilty panic is gone.

She finds the door handle without difficulty this time, and says quickly, “Thanks for the ride. See you Monday.”

“Monday,” he parrots, eyes confused, but she couldn’t tell him what she means by that because, hell, she doesn’t know.

Shouldering her bag, she steps onto the curb.

She has the presence of mind to walk around the back of the random house, and she watches as his headlights disappear around a corner.

She huffs out a breath, shoves off the wall, and turns back down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, darlings--I am very, very sorry that this took so long. I started at university in early August, and have been suffering from some pretty terrific writer's block, so this was actually nearly three weeks' worth of work. That said, I'm not abandoning it, surely! However, it -does- mean that I need to start prioritizing my works. Therefore, if you have an opinion on what gets updated next--this, Legally Blonde AU, the Eponine/Feuilly series, or my Combeferre/Eponine series, please let me know!
> 
> As always, come talk to me at goldfishtobleroneandamitie.tumblr.com, and thank you to the awesome that is notanearlyadopter for her beta work.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! This is goldfishtobleroneandamitie, not actually got_spunk, despite the proliferation of AUs lately. This is shaping up to be rather long, and I'm really excited to write something this involved and self-contained. Any feedback you can provide would be invaluable.
> 
> A humongous hug and a giant fruit basket to MeMeMe, who exchanged multiple e-mails with me over three days trying to get my Marius descriptions to work, while being busy meeting Neil Gaiman.
> 
> I really hope you'll enjoy the ride, I know I will!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr--I'm at goldfishtobleroneandamitie.tumblr.com.
> 
> -gfaa


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